Diagnosis apparatus which supports fault reproduction, and method of outputting fault reproduction data

• US 9,087,421 B2
• Filed: 03/09/2010
• Issued: 07/21/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 04/06/2009
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Honda Motor Co., Ltd. (Honda Motor Company)
• Original Assignee: Honda Motor Co., Ltd. (Honda Motor Company)
• Inventors: Tsuchikiri, Hideyuki, Sato, Yasushi, Aihara, Jiro
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, John Q
• Assistant Examiner(s): WHALEN, MICHAEL F
• Application Number:
  US13/256,940
• Publication Number:
  US 20120065833A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,960 Days
• Field of Search: 701/29.1, 701/29.3, 701/31.8, 701/32.1, 701/32.9
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 50/0205 Diagnosing or detecting failures; Failure detection models
• CPC Class Codes: G01M 17/00 Testing of vehicles testing fluid tightness G01M3/00; testing elastic properties of bodies or chassis, e.g. torsion-testing, G01M5/00; testing alignment of vehicle headlight devices G01M11/06; testing of engines G01M15/00
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/0808 Diagnosing performance data testing of vehicles G01M17/00; testing of electrical installation on vehicles G01R31/005
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/0816 Indicating performance data, e.g. occurrence of a malfunction
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/0825 using optical means

Abstract

A trouble diagnosis apparatus which supports reproduction of trouble according to a trouble code provided from an electronic control unit of the vehicle. The apparatus comprises means for extracting, for at least one of the trouble codes, characteristics unique to the trouble code with respect to respective driving parameters, means for extracting, from said driving data associated with a plurality of trouble codes, global characteristics associated with a plurality of said trouble codes with respect to each one of said driving parameters, and for said at least one of the trouble codes, means, based on similarity between the characteristics unique to the trouble code and said global characteristics, for setting the portion of the characteristics unique to the trouble code that have low similarity as the driving data for reproducing the trouble corresponding to the trouble code.

Claims

1. A trouble diagnosis apparatus for supporting reproduction of trouble on the basis of at least one of diagnosis trouble codes provided by an electronic control unit provided onboard a vehicle, each of the diagnosis trouble codes representing a trouble, the trouble diagnosis apparatus configured to:

extract unique characteristics that are unique to at least one of the diagnosis trouble codes from driving data read out from electronic control units of a plurality of vehicles in trouble, for each driving parameter;

extract global characteristics that are characteristics relating to a plurality of the diagnosis trouble codes from said driving data read out from the electronic control units of the plurality of vehicles in trouble, for each driving parameter; and

for a given diagnosis trouble code, determine similarity between the unique characteristics unique to the given diagnosis trouble code and the global characteristics,

out of one or more unique characteristics unique to the given diagnosis trouble code, select one or more unique characteristics that have low similarity relative to the global characteristics as the driving data for reproducing the trouble corresponding to the given diagnosis trouble code, and present the one or more selected unique characteristics for reproducing the trouble.

2. The trouble diagnosis apparatus of claim 1, wherein the unique characteristics unique to respective ones of the diagnosis trouble codes are extracted from histograms of driving data for respective driving parameters, and the global characteristics are extracted from histograms for respective driving parameters that are produced from the driving data for a plurality of the diagnosis trouble codes.

3. The trouble diagnosis apparatus of claim 2, wherein said unique characteristics and said global characteristics are represented by step functions respectively.

4. The trouble diagnosis apparatus of claim 1, wherein said driving data are data for a predetermined period when a trouble took place, and wherein said trouble diagnosis apparatus is further configured to:

detect, for given parameters, variation of the driving data from the last in said predetermined period to the time that is a predetermined time before the last; and

provide the variation of the driving data as a part of information for reproducing the trouble.

5. The trouble diagnosis apparatus of claim 1, wherein said driving parameters include driving environment parameter that varies depending on operations by a user, device environment parameter that varies by automatic control of the vehicle, and vehicle environment parameter that varies with the environment where the vehicle is placed.

6. In diagnosis of troubles of vehicles, a computer implemented method of presenting trouble diagnosis data for supporting reproduction of trouble on the basis of at least one of diagnosis trouble codes provided by an electronic control unit provided onboard a vehicle, each of the diagnosis trouble codes representing a trouble, the method comprising the steps of:

extracting unique characteristics of respective driving parameters that are unique to respective ones of the diagnosis trouble codes from driving data read out from electronic control units of a plurality of vehicles in trouble, for each driving parameter;

extracting global characteristics that are characteristics relating to a plurality of the diagnosis trouble codes from said driving data read out from the electronic control units of the plurality of vehicles in trouble, for each driving parameter;

determining, for a given diagnosis trouble code, similarity between the unique characteristics unique to the given diagnosis trouble code and the global characteristics; and

out of unique characteristics unique to the given diagnosis trouble code, presenting one or more unique characteristics that have low similarity to the global characteristics as the driving data for reproducing the trouble corresponding to the given diagnosis trouble code.

7. The computer implemented method of claim 6, wherein the unique characteristics are extracted from histograms of driving data for respective driving parameters, and the global characteristics are extracted from histograms for respective driving parameters that are produced from the driving data for a plurality of the diagnosis trouble codes.

8. The computer implemented method of claim 7, wherein the unique characteristics and the global characteristics are represented by step functions.

9. The computer implemented method of claim 6, wherein said driving data are data in a predetermined period when a trouble took place, and wherein said method further comprising the step of:

detecting, for a given parameter, variation of the driving data from the last in the predetermined time to the time that is a predetermined time before the last, and

providing the variation of the driving data as a part of information for reproducing the trouble.

10. The computer implemented method of claim 6, where said driving parameters include driving environment parameter that varies depending on operations by a user, device environment parameter that varies by automatic control of the vehicle, and vehicle environment parameter that varies with the environment where the vehicle is placed.